Excommunicated - Craig Hoyle and Nikki Macdonald

After coming out as gay, Craig Hoyle was excommunicated from the New Zealand Exclusive Brethren and forced to say goodbye to his Invercargill-based family forever. The closed conservative sect was everything he'd ever known. In his memoir Excommunicated, Craig charts his journey in modern society and explores the often cruel effects of the Exclusive Brethren upbringing on generations of his family and the unusual history of the church. He shares his story in conversation with journalist Nikki Macdonald.

Craig Hoyle grew up in Invercargill within the New Zealand Exclusive Brethren. Separated from public society, he attended Brethren-only schooling and worked in his family’s tyre shop. After facing interrogation and conversion therapy for his sexuality, he was excommunicated from the Brethren and separated from his family in 2009. Today he is Chief News Director for the Sunday Star-Times. He has worked for newsrooms such as TV3 and RadioLive, and behind the scenes on current affairs shows including 60 Minutes. He lives in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Nikki Macdonald is an award winning senior writer for The Post and Sunday Star-Times. In more than 20 years as a journalist, she has covered multiple disasters, eaten hospital food for a week, puffed through the police fitness test and reported from inside a nuclear power plant. A Marlborough Book Festival veteran, she has interviewed many of New Zealand’s literary legends, including Bill Manhire, Owen Marshall, Catherine Chidgey and Emily Perkins.